>The first is something I guess I don’t do. If I select something that I want to paste somewhere, then I’m going to paste it right away; I already know exactly where it goes.
I often want to paste things multiple times. e.g. I paste an interesting URL to an instant message chat, then maybe 10 minutes later I paste the same URL to someone else.
>The second is that searching in applications you use frequently replaces the selection?
suppose I didn't know what "appending" meant and I wanted to search for it. I can highlight it, rightclick, then choose "search Google". I don't want to paste "appending" anywhere, I just want to search Google for it. but the act of highlighting it will overwrite whatever is in the middleclick buffer. so if that's the only clipboard I had, searching the web would interfere with copypaste, which is stupid.
>This one is more subtle, but pasting from the primary selection into a textbox is supposed to replace the content of the text box, rather than appending to it.
again that's not what I meant. I'm talking about taking a portion of the text in one textbox and replacing it with the text from elsewhere. for example, suppose I want to change part of the message I'm typing right now with lorem ipsum. it looks like this:
Sure, I understand. You can also do that by reversing the order of the two operations (paste into the document, then select and delete the unnecessary text), or you can use both selections (select the text to be copied while holding down alt, then select the text to replace while not holding alt, and middle click from the secondary selection by holding alt).
But that’s not really the point; the point is that it’s nice to have both mechanisms available. Some people will find selections more convenient, others won’t.
I often want to paste things multiple times. e.g. I paste an interesting URL to an instant message chat, then maybe 10 minutes later I paste the same URL to someone else.
>The second is that searching in applications you use frequently replaces the selection?
no that's not what I mean. I'm talking about this: https://imgur.com/QiQiBLT.png
suppose I didn't know what "appending" meant and I wanted to search for it. I can highlight it, rightclick, then choose "search Google". I don't want to paste "appending" anywhere, I just want to search Google for it. but the act of highlighting it will overwrite whatever is in the middleclick buffer. so if that's the only clipboard I had, searching the web would interfere with copypaste, which is stupid.
>This one is more subtle, but pasting from the primary selection into a textbox is supposed to replace the content of the text box, rather than appending to it.
again that's not what I meant. I'm talking about taking a portion of the text in one textbox and replacing it with the text from elsewhere. for example, suppose I want to change part of the message I'm typing right now with lorem ipsum. it looks like this:
[1] https://imgur.com/GWldV00.png (ctrl-c copies)
[2] https://imgur.com/63RrISF.png (highlight destination. this overrides middleclick buffer, destroying the lorem ipsum copy if it were placed there)
[3] https://imgur.com/zGavx2b.png (ctrl-v pastes)